


we live and die, my friend

by flish_writes_things



Series: woah epic gods mcyt au! [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP Spoilers (Video Blogging RPF), Not Canon Compliant, Not Really Character Death, Piglin Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Piglin Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), SHIPPERS DNI, Time Travel Fix-It, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, check it another work >:), for now at least >:), im going to do SO much worldbuilding for this fic, it's not really plot relevant but it's true, piglin technoblade my beloved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29919501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flish_writes_things/pseuds/flish_writes_things
Summary: The world is dying. The gods are dead. Soon there will be nothing.Karl Jacobs, an aspiring historian searching to categorise history just in case something new shows up and wants to know what happened, visits the town of Bamburgh to meet with a man who had a close encounter with a god.title from "vulture culture" by fangclub!i know it says no archive warnings apply but that isn't necessarily true; please read the cws!!
Relationships: Karl Jacobs & Technoblade, Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: woah epic gods mcyt au! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200194
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	we live and die, my friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rubenel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubenel/gifts), [that_b33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_b33/gifts), [astrifer0us](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrifer0us/gifts).



> cws!!
> 
> mentions of d/c/p/tation  
> wilbur's d//th is part of a flashback kind of scene, in vague detail  
> post wilbur blowing up lmanburg (specifically techno summoning the withers) is part of a flashback kind of scene  
> note that the flashbacks are *not necessary* to read this one-shot, nor the whole fic! they're both in italics so feel free to skip!  
> mentions of being injured, specifically bl//ding out  
> heavy mentions of d//th  
> implied main character d//th however i'm not tagging it since it's only sort of vaguely implied and technically doesn't actually happen  
> implied d//th of mentioned characters
> 
> to those we gifted this to:  
> saturn!! you are such an epic sibling >:) i am so glad we know you so here! an angsty fic which will probably hurt you. i am sorry. if you're gonna read this one-shot please please pay attention to the cws philza minecraft would be sad if you simply did not pay attention to them. also please skip over the flashback scenes they will be harmful to you  
> thank you bee for being epic gamer and being on call with us at like 1am while we were trying to get this done >:)  
> thank you astrix for your dutch moral support

“Well,” he says, “here I am.”

Karl is excited, almost. He can feel his heart beating out of his chest and he doesn’t know if it’s excitement or fear. He’s definitely worried that he’s not going to get the answers he’s looking for, or that he’s going to get no answers at all.

The town is old, and run down; it was made in a desert, and the sand is scorching under his feet. He’s glad he remembered to take proper boots. It’s so damn warm, and yet he doesn’t want to take off his hoodie. It’s grey, any colour almost entirely faded from it. He can’t remember where he got it, but he knows it matters.

His memory has been getting worse as of late, so he’s using a notebook to write down everything of importance. He takes another look at the notes for the town, for the person he’s looking out for.

_The town is called Bamburgh. It’s in a desert, at -9834 60 10892. It’s going to be really, really hot. The settlement is old and nobody has the resources for repairs. Like the rest of the world, this place is dying._

_The guy that you’re, the one who had that encounter with a god, looking for doesn’t have a name noted. He has light pink hair, usually in a ponytail or a bun. He’s got tusks that poke out from his lips, and he always carries an iron sword on him. He’s a farmer. Pretty sure he’s a piglin hybrid. His eyes are bright, but the irises are said to be black, or maybe a very dark green. He’s the oldest guy there; everyone knows him and his almost unnatural ability to tend to his plants. Even in droughts, they grow. The townsfolk never complain because he’s their only source of food. He’s a little rough around the edges and slow to trust, so be careful._

_Good luck! I believe in you, future me!_

He closes the book. It makes a little snap noise as it does, and he looks up. There’s a kid sat on the porch of one of the houses, no older than 15. Their eyes are green and their clothes are faded blue, thin shirt gently waving in the gentle winds. Their hair is short and red, covered by a large hat. They look up at him.

“Hi, uh- do you know where I could find the, um, the farmer?” Karl asks, stumbling over his words.

The kid lazily raises their head and then nods it to the right of them.

“Thank you!” says Karl. The kid raises a thumbs-up before lowering their hand, dipping their head, and presumably trying to fall asleep, or ignore the heat of the day. Karl wishes he had a hat. It'd keep the sun out of his eyes.

He wanders in the direction the kid told him to go in. There are weeds poking out of the ground where the sand turns to sandstone, some of the few remaining plants in the place.

The wood used in building the place doesn't look native, he ponders. Not much grows in the desert but there's a savannah nearby, where acacia trees grow in comparative abundance. The logs look more like jungle, or maybe dark oak. There’s no nearby biomes which even support those kinds of woods, Karl thinks. The construction of the houses is odd too. They’re built to be small.

“Úh- hello?” comes a voice, startling him out of his thoughts. The accent is from somewhere that he can’t place. He looks up from the ground - it’s shifted from sand to gravel, he notes - to see a man, a couple heads taller than him, tusks jutting out from his lips, pink hair drawn into a long, thin ponytail. His skin is tanned, almost fluffy in a way, and he’s got a green and white striped bucket hat on his head. Karl distantly notices it doesn’t fit him.

His eyes, though.

The man’s eyes aren’t black or green like described; they’re a bright gold colour, almost brighter than the sun itself. They’re not yellow; they’re gold. There’s a distinction that Karl can’t quite place.

“Hello, hello! Are you the farmer here?”

“I am,” the man says gruffly, crossing his arms. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. It’s clear he doesn’t trust Karl, especially as he says “You’d be who exactly?”

“I’m a historian!” says Karl. Something lights up in the farmer's eyes, like recognition, and then hope. It shifts back to the normal confused and distrustful look, but it’s got some kind of excitement behind it.

“Right. Well. You can call me Theseus.”

“Theseus isn’t your real name? Is it a nickname?” Karl knows this is probably a boundary he shouldn’t push, especially on a piglin hybrid, but he can’t help himself. He’s always been too curious for his own good.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what my actual name was.” says this Theseus. His tone and stance make it clear that he isn’t budging on this. “Do you have any _actual_ questions or are you gonna leave me to my damn farmin’?”

A shock of deja vu goes through Karl; he’s heard that voice before.

_You’ve heard that voice before, you’ve heard that voice before-  
_

_"-then die like one!” the man yells, voice as sharp as his blade; the sound of withers spawning draws all of the warriors to movement; the hybrid draws his sword and prepares to fight, to kill, to_ **_kill, to-_ **

“Uh- are you alright?” Theseus’ voice is laced with worry. Karl finds himself on the floor. He’s crying. He doesn’t know when he started crying.

“Yeah, I, just.. I don’t know. Can I ask you some questions?”

They make actual eye contact then, instead of awkwardly avoiding each other. Karl definitely knows this guy from somewhere.

“..okay. Let me finish up on the farm and I’ll answer your questions, but I won’t answer ones that I’m not comfortable with. Head inside o’ the house and I’ll come in when I’m ready.”

With that, Theseus turns away, going to continue his farming. He’s pulling up potatoes from the ground, putting them into a barrel. Karl takes a moment to get up, and decides not to think about what happened. He goes into Theseus’ house.

The house is a stark contrast from the rest of the town. The other houses are broken and old, with jungle logs as supports and dark oak floors, but Theseus’ house is almost entirely spruce, with stone brick (falling apart in some places and fixed with rocks shaped to fit the gap) underneath some supporting logs. There’s a ladder to a lower floor, presumably a storage room of sorts, and Karl doesn’t go down it, electing to pick up the kettle, fill it with what little water Theseus has that doesn’t go to his plants and put it over the open campfire in the corner of the room. After searching in cabinets, he finds some old tea leaves and decides to make tea for both him and Theseus, in the hopes that a hot drink will leave the man more comfortable answering his questions. He fishes out two cups from another cabinet, cleans them, and serves the tea. 

Theseus still isn’t inside a couple minutes later, so Karl takes a look out of a window and sees the man cutting wheat with a stone scythe. Despite the fact that it’s stone, Karl reckons that the scythe could cut off his head if Theseus so wished it.

“You want help out there?” Karl says, voice loud despite himself, but he doesn’t yell. Theseus looks up at him, shakes his head.

“I won’t take much longer.”

“Okay!” says Karl. He decides to fill the time by writing down some questions for Theseus, so that he can prepare for the conversation.

He finishes writing the questions and not 10 seconds after, Theseus walks in the door. It squeaks on its hinges and he looks up, fiddling with the edge of his hoodie. Now that the time’s come, he’s nervous.

“I’m ready for your questions,” he says, voice softer. Karl hands him the tea.

“Alright. Just to check, the- the thing, with, ah, the god-”

“I can talk about it, but I.. won’t be going into much detail. It’s a personal event.” Theseus says. Karl thinks he gets a lot of questions about it, and winces when he looks up from the notebook to see the guy’s face. Theseus looks distraught; hopeless, even. The guy takes a sip of his tea, shakes his head gently, presumably trying to pull himself out of his thoughts. It works, because he looks back at Karl with a different, resigned kind of expression.

“Right. Firstly, name, how old are you? Just a little description of who you are.”

“I go by Theseus, I’m.. well, by piglin standards, quite young? I’m 28, in piglin years. I’m a piglin hybrid, obviously. I’m the only farmer in Bamburgh. You should note down that they call this place “The Last Town” in places that are basically dead. That’s probably an important part o’ history. Although..” he ends his small ramble there, with a slightly pondering look. 

“Although?” Karl asks.

“Well, I mean, if nobody’s gonna be around to read your stuff, I don’t see the point in writin’ it down.” Theseus explains, an apologetic undertone to his voice.

Karl pauses on that, having not considered it. Theseus makes a vaguely apologetic noise, to which Karl shakes his head and says,

“I guess I’m more writing it down for myself. I..” his voice gets very quiet and small as he says, “I don’t want to forget any more.”

The air in the room is heavy, a strenuous silence falling over them like fog. When Karl speaks again, it’s not quiet, but in a lower tone than he expects.

“What was your encounter with the god like?”

It takes Theseus a moment to ponder this question. After a couple seconds, he speaks.

“I’m a piglin hybrid, right? Have been my whole life. Nether hybrids don’t usually get out o’ The Nether. We have to make do with our shitty lives.” He sounds annoyed as he says this, and takes a breath to clear his head.

“You an’ I both know that ordinary humans don’t survive in The Nether. It’s too dangerous. The heat clouds their mind and their senses are dull, leaving them prey to a ghast, or piglin, or - for the ones that make it that far - a Wither skeleton, or a blaze, or enderman or hoglin.

“Hybrids, though, are used to dangerous circumstances. Snake hybrids would do well in The Nether if their balance wasn’t so shit. Most hybrids have better senses, and are more aware of their surroundin’s, capable of keeping track of their location better than humans. It causes us to be able to traverse The Nether with ease, whereas any human that comes back from The Nether has no stories to tell.

“This man.. was human. Obviously so,” Theseus continues, “He was underprepared, no armour, just a sword at his hip and a shield at his side. He had a damn _hat_ on. I was a kid- not treated well, you understand, for being a hybrid, I was usually quite shunned or mocked or attacked by other piglins. That’s off-topic though.

“He found me. I was hurt, bleedin’ out, and he found me, and he helped me. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him. There was no way he wasn’t a god, having survived The Nether. There wasn’t even a scratch on him.”

“His portal was a damn way away, he said to me, an’ it really did feel like I’d die then. I thought he’d see me, and leave me for dead. Didn’t expect it when he picked me up, nor when he spread his wings and flew across a whole damn lava lake with me strugglin’ in his arms. Half hour flight, maybe? He took me to The Overworld and healed me up. I got sent to an orphanage an’, y’know, lived.”

Karl nods slowly.

“Do you know what happened to the god? Do you know their name?”

“Their name was, uh, Phil.”

On the name, Karl feels that same panicked jolt of _you know this person, you know that name, you know this, you know-  
  
_

* * *

_“You’re my_ **_son_ ** _!” he cries. Tears are streaming down his face. He’s gripping a sword, so tightly that his knuckles are going white._

_“Kill me, Phil, kill me, Killza, Killza,” repeats the other man, in a beanie and ratty trench coat. He repeats it like a mantra, like he’ll die if he won’t._

_He dies either way._

* * *

  
  


Karl realises, in a distant kind of way, that he’s panicking. It swells up from his subconscious, popping like a bubble and coating his mind with fear. Theseus is talking but he can’t hear a word the farmer’s saying. 

A cup of tea gets shoved almost roughly into his hands. He’s shaking as he brings it to his lips but drinking it helps. His breathing evens out and he wipes the tears from his face.

“Sorry if I caused that,” says Theseus. Karl looks at him.

He has to know this guy from somewhere. He recognises his voice.

“Do I know you?” says Karl. Theseus’ eyes open wide, in hope or maybe surprise.

“Technoblade?” says the farmer, with a little bit too much hope.

Karl _remembers_.

“..yeah. Hello, Technoblade.” His voice takes on a colder quality upon recalling the things that Techno had done.

“Karl, do you remember who you are?”

“No. Who was I?”

“A god. Of time. According to yourself, you’d brought us back from failure or death, timelines doomed by our mistakes and ignorance and hubris. So many times, Karl. I don’t know how you lived with that knowledge.”

“And I just.. Forgot that. I think you’re crazy, Technoblade.”

“Do you know why the world is dying?”

“No.”

“We got into too many fights. We - all of the gods. Too many to list. We started to succeed in killin’ each other, for good.” Techno looks like he’s about to cry. He continues, “The only reason I’m alive is because I’m too strong to die, and started to distance myself when I realised things were getting really bad. I realised far too late. You were never around for any fights. Everyone else took it upon themselves to win, or help their friends. It,” he takes off his hat and looks at it despondently, “it was fuckin’ horrible. So many people got hurt, Karl.”

“If I’m a god of time, couldn’t I reverse- this? Everything?”

“That’s why I took your stupid interview. We can reverse it. Follow me.”

He rises from his chair, Karl following suit, and descends down the ladder into what appears to be a storage room, and then a basement. He opens a hidden door,piston operated, into a room with one singular end crystal floating gently in the centre. Within the crystal is a clock, the movements of its hands almost imperceptible. Karl’s eyes go wide.

“No way.”

“Destroy it,” says Technoblade, “and we’ll go back. To the very beginnin’. We can make it right this time, Karl. Neither of us are gonna remember this but we can make it right. We’ll do better.”

The room is silent.

“You’re not lying to me, right?”

“The only thing I’ve got to lose is my life, Karl. It’s not worth lyin’ to you. Not about this.”

“..okay.”

He takes a deep breath, approaches the end crystal cautiously. His hand fiddles with his watch, the many faces of it ticking in unison. 

He raises his hand to the end crystal, screws his eyes closed, and hits it as hard as he can. There's a blinding, hot pain, and then the world goes white.

* * *

Karl has never been a particularly smart kid.

Sure, he’s good enough for his age, but he’s never paid enough attention in class, never been as good as he knows he could be.

No, at the age of 7, he spends all of his time looking at clocks. One would presume he’s waiting for something, but really he’s staring at the golden afterimage that the hands bring when they move.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! remember to hydrate, sit up straight and maybe go grab something to eat :O  
> have a wonderful day!!
> 
> woah edit i forgot to add: been wondering if we should make a discord server for our works and stuff? please comment if you want that/would join!  
> another edit smh: if there's any tags you think we should add, let us know! we are still bad at ao3 so help us out a bit >:)


End file.
